National Security Council group can target US citizens, but president can veto decision.

WASHINGTON:

American militants like Anwar al Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior US government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to US officials.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a US-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.

The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a US citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.

Current and former US officials said that to the best of their knowledge, Awlaki, who the White House said was a key figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate, had been the only American put on a US government list targeting people for capture or death due to their alleged involvement with militants.

The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obama’s toughness toward militants who threaten the United States. But the process that led to Awlaki’s killing has drawn fierce criticism from both the political left and right.

In an ironic turn, Obama, who ran for president denouncing predecessor George W. Bush’s expansive use of executive power in his “war on terrorism,” is being attacked in some quarters for using similar tactics. They include secret legal justifications and undisclosed intelligence assessments.

Liberals criticised the drone attack on an American citizen as extra-judicial murder. Conservatives criticised Obama for refusing to release a Justice Department legal opinion that reportedly justified killing Awlaki. They accuse Obama of hypocrisy, noting his administration insisted on publishing Bush-era administration legal memos justifying the use of interrogation techniques many equate with torture, but refused to make public its rationale for killing a US citizen without due process.

Some details about how the administration went about targeting Awlaki emerged on Tuesday when the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, was asked by reporters about the killing.

Other officials said the role of the president in the process was murkier than what Ruppersberger described. They said targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC “principals,” meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval. The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said.

The officials insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

They confirmed that lawyers, including those in the Justice Department, were consulted before Awlaki’s name was added to the target list.

Several officials said that when Awlaki became the first American put on the target list, Obama was not required personally to approve the targeting of a US person. But one official said Obama would be notified of the principals’ decision. If he objected, the decision would be nullified, the official said.

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Reader Comments (3)

A person who hides out in another country should not get a pass just because he is an American citizen. There wasn’t anything secret or nefarious about this guy being put on a “kill or capture” list – the President announced it to the World months in advance of his demise – his father tried to get him removed from the list in court and lost – he always had the opportunity to turn himself in and be tried in a court of law. Recommend